Most of our retail “fall from glory” tales are variations on the same theme. Larger, more modern competition swoops in and leaves behind a swath of older retail in the dust. Literally. This particular story is no exception; however, it’s a lot more complicated (and interesting) than that, at least from a retail history standpoint. Apparently if you kick a retail center down once, it dies, but if you kick it down twice, it reinvents itself completely to be somewhat immune.

Waukegan, Illinois is one of several older satellite gateway cities orbiting the periphery of greater Chicago. Located 40 miles north of downtown Chicago, the city has grown to house nearly 100,00 residents today. Much like Gary, Hammond, Joliet, Aurora, Elgin, and arguably others like it, these cities grew up not necessarily as post-war suburbs of Chicago, but in tandem with Chicago from the early 19th century onward. Unlike the suburban post-war boomtown suburbs of Schaumburg, Gurnee, Orland Park, and countless others which all barely existed before the mid-20th century suburban explosion, these gateway cities have a history more common with that of Chicago’s in the manufacturing era a century previous.

Understanding this is important because it helps us pinpoint how suburban sprawl has impacted these older gateway cities. Modern sprawl has filled in the rural pockets in between these cities and Chicago with relatively affluent bedroom communities, complete with cookie-cutter housing development and strip retail everywhere. In response, these older anchor cities became fallow during the latter part of the 20th century. While cities adjacent to Waukegan in northern Lake County such as Gurnee have benefitted from the massively explosive post-war sprawl to have large-scale amusement parks, huge malls and more, cities like Waukegan, Elgin, Joliet, and Aurora have quietly rusted away behind the scenes as if embattled in a forgotten identity crisis.

Left out of the picture, these anchor cities began creating suburban developments of their own. In Joliet, Elgin and Aurora, suburban sprawl accounts for much of the city’s land area today, and because these cities benefit from having room to grow and farmland to gobble this process will continue unabated until it reaches some sort of natural break, or demand wanes. Cities like Gary, Hammond, and Waukegan, however, weren’t so fortunate. Each of these cities has had almost no room to build out to keep up with the trend of suburbanization, due to being directly up against Lake Michigan on one side and against other established cities of suburban sprawl on the other. By the time they were willing to get in the game, it was almost too late. Also consider these cities are older on the whole, and their residents’ egress caused the suburban sprawlburgs to happen in the first place, and you have a vicious cycle of simultaneously more sprawl in the new suburbs and more blight in the older cities’ cores. In Waukegan’s case, it is a pall on the wealthy suburbia that makes up the rest of Lake County.

Waukegan did, however, make some attempts to join the sprawl-party in the mid-20th century. It gobbled up as much farmland as it could on the southwest side of the city, the only side not already occupied by something else. There it expanded quite far, creating the same young cul-de-sac subdivisions as everywhere else, and even two enclosed malls. The first of these opened in the 1960s (conflicting sources list different years) along Belvidere Road (Hwy 120), a fast growing strip of retail and services at the time. Rather appropriately, it was named Belvidere Mall.

When Belvidere Mall opened it was anchored by a large Montgomery Ward and, for a time, was the only large enclosed mall along the Lake Michigan shoreline between Milwaukee and Chicago. However, Belvidere Mall enjoyed only a modicum of popularity due to competition in the form of a much larger super-regional mall which opened just up the street in 1971. Lakehurst Mall opened immediately successful and at over one million square feet with three behemoth anchors, outsized most other shopping venues in northern Chicagoland and the surrounding areas of Wisconsin. Furthermore, it was better situated than smaller Belvidere Mall, two miles away. Lakehurst was located adjacent to the junction of the Tri-State Tollway (I-294), US 41, Waukegan Road (IL 43) and Belvidere Road (Hwy 120). It was also situated in one of the only “modern” areas of Waukegan, far from the urban, decaying, and industrial downtown core. In addition to all that, Lakehurst was designed to be as modern as possible itself (for the 1970s) by famed retail architect Victor Gruen.

As the 1970s progressed, Lakehurst Mall achieved further dominance under the city of Waukegan and Lake County’s master plans, which called for ancillary retail and residential areas to be built along the Lakehurst ring road adjacent to the mall. These included strip convenience centers, many apartment complexes, chain restaurants, and family fun centers. Although placing these activities together is common now, it was a relatively new idea in the early 1970s and the Lakehurst model was something of a pioneer for this type of development.

In contrast, all through the 1970s and into the 1980s, sales at Belvidere Mall slumped as it could not keep up with its more popular sibling down the road. In 1988, the bottom fell out at Belvidere Mall and it lost its most important anchor, Montgomery Ward, to Lakehurst Mall in order to fill the Wieboldt’s vacancy after the chain went under. From that point on, and arguably from a point long before that, Belvidere Mall ceased to be of much importance as a regional destination.

Complicating matters further, the retail dynamic in and around Waukegan changed more dramatically in 1991 when the Mills Corporation opened a newer, even larger mall than Lakehurst in the adjacent sprawlburg of Gurnee across from an already well-established Six Flags amusement park. The 1.8 million square foot Gurnee Mills was a huge success, and drew shoppers from all over southeastern Wisconsin, northeastern Illinois and beyond because it was a new hybridized format of enclosed mall with trendy, popular outlet stores. Gurnee Mills didn’t didn’t feel like an outlet mall, however, so sales skyrocketed and the Mills corporation went on to build many more malls like it across North America. Immediately following Gurnee Mills’ opening, a slew of retail boxes and strip centers sprang up around it, mostly along Grand Avenue (IL 120), just a few miles north of Lakehurst and Belvidere Malls.

Following the opening of Gurnee Mills, the tables turned on Lakehurst Mall, and many stores and even anchors jumped ship as profits sank during the 1990s. By the end of that decade, Lakehurst was just a shadow of its’ former self. In fact, most of the mall structure closed permanently in 2001, with the Carson Pirie Scott anchor hanging on until January 2004. The whole thing was demolished soon after, and after much debate about what to do with the site it was replaced with a rather bland yet useful strip center development featuring a Wal-Mart called Fountain Square of Waukegan.

As for Belvidere Mall, it ironically weathered the second competitive blow of Gurnee Mills in 1991 far better than it had Lakehurst Mall in 1971. Throughout the 1990s, following the 1988 departure of Montgomery Ward, Belvidere Mall repositioned itself to be ancillary-on-purpose, which is often a boon for these smaller, much older enclosed centers, especially when encroached upon by more popular competition. A Builders Square home improvement center replaced the vacated Wards soon after Wards fled to Lakehurst, and the same spot quickly became a Home Depot following the demise of the Builders Square chain in 1998. Also in 1998, the mall revamped its image with a new name of Belvidere Discount Mall, and not only attracted discount retailers, but local ethnic/hispanic ones as well. As the city of Waukegan is 50 percent hispanic, and a large hispanic population resides in several other cities in northeast Lake County, the mall serves an underrepresented population and thus has carved out its own niche, unaffected by the woes of traditional retail competition.

Ironically, Belvidere Mall was hit not once, but twice, and the second blow allowed it to stay in the game, albeit a far cry from the traditional enclosed mall it opened as over four decades ago. The photo set included here was shot in 2001. Make sure to check out the interesting shops, the antique laundromat, and the cinema. Has the mall changed significantly since? Any other stories or information to tell? What was Belvidere Mall like during its heyday?

Update 11/15/07: John G. has sent once again sent us some great vintage pictures. Enjoy them.

38 Responses to “Belvidere Mall; Waukegan, Illinois”

Double-take: The Wards became a Builders Depot, then became a Home Depot? Does the Home Depot open into the mall, a la Mall 205? That’s really weird, because Belvidere Mall look like it was never renovated, ever (except maybe for a new tile job).

Even that tile job looks like something out of the era this mall was built.

A rare example of a mall being retenanted and serving a niche that otherwise would be stuck in dying (and sometimes dangerous) ‘downtown’ areas.

The past four years I’ve gone down to the Chicagoland area, this was a mall I wanted to see, but I always forget about it. Probably because it’s kind of out of the way of the main interestate where many of the major malls are.

this place is cool i love to go there when i want to feel like im in the past. i love all the old store fronts. i wish the merchancents had better merchindising skills though. i will also say it was even better before thay put the keyosks in you got a sense the mall was larger know it is so closed in i love the main moll entrance i also wish that home deopt opened into the mall i think any store atttached to a mall should open into it .i think this could in most communitys be required by law for fire reasons the more exits the better i sent you some old photos i had of this one did you get them im having truble with my computer amd dont know if you are gettin them
john gallo

@john gallo, I was born in 1960 and lived in Waukegan until 1985. In the 70’s we went to the Belvidere mall for all the James Bons movies, went to Wards to the record Dept to by our 45’s. 🙂 I played tennis across the street at Belvidere Park. Thanks for the memories. Great pics.

ya you right this is waukegan a little sesspool by the lake. oh thay probably just weel the carts in the mall entrance anyway. you should see what thay do to stores around hear. i work at the wal-mart in fountain square (old Lakehurst site) its bad when i tell people i work there thay say things like oh that store and why? or i dont shop there its not safe.but belvideer is still fun to look at.

1. the home depot isn’t connected by an entrance in the mall (although our carts still sometimes end up in the mall.
2. as these pics are 6 years old there’s a bit of difference in the mall… like the movie theatre and arcade are vacant , the laundromat recently got new washers and dryers so that should be open again soon.
3. el pollo rico does have tasty chicken (and steak tacos)

all in all this is a thriving mall kinda in the style of a indoor fleamarket in terms of stores

“…cities like Waukegan, Elgin, Joliet, and Aurora have quietly rusted away behind the scenes as if embattled in a forgotten identity crisis.”

Or they become 2000s-era big-box-and-subdivision exurbs themselves through annexation. Aurora recently passed Rockford to become Illinois’ second-largest city, yet downtown has seen only modest redevelopment beyond the casino and a few Mexican-oriented businesses on the main street. All of the growth in Aurora has come from the large-scale annexation of suburban subdivisions–so much, in fact, that the city stretches into four different counties. The Fox Valley Mall itself is in the City of Aurora, in the subdivision-heavy DuPage County portion that abuts Naperville. Joliet’s downtown is admittedly stagnant, but annexation and then suburbanization of huge rural areas to the north and west has made it the only city outside the Sunbelt to rank among the top 10 fastest-growing cities since the 2000 census. Waukegan appears more “decayed” than either Aurora or Joliet because it is hemmed in on all four sides: by Gurnee on the west, by Great Lakes NAS on the south, by Lake Michigan on the east, and by Zion on the north.

It’s interesting to compare the fortunes of Waukegan to those of Kenosha, just 12 miles north. Both towns have a lakefront setting, a population of just under 100,000, and a strategic location between Chicago and Milwaukee. Yet Kenosha has prospered and Waukegan has stagnated. Could this be due to the fact that Kenosha is too far from both Chicago and Milwaukee to compete for influence with either?

waukegans problems is not the distanc to chicago or milwaukee. it is realy this simple the resedents are to blame. ther is so mutch coruption in local goverment and street crime there is also a big drug problem hear and a lot of people with a i dont give a dam additude the people hear are traseant due to the navy base and a lot of people dont put down roots it just a stop over in there life. i work at the wal mart hear we had a vary high srink and that is one of the problems that lakehurst had as well mew buildings dint salve the old problem

sory about the spelling in my coment everyone ,but it was late i was tired and i live here so i see whats going on ,and it makes me vary upset that the good people here have to live this way . the mall got lost in all this , it is a fun mall to look at and i feel that dixie sq. looked something like it frome the photos i saw when it was open.

“All of the growth in Aurora has come from the large-scale annexation of suburban subdivisions”

Elgin too is expanding rapidly through annexation and development of onetime farmland west of Randall Road. The tiny towns of Plato Center and Pingree Grove stand as tiny islands, soon to be surrounded by development reaching from Elgin on the east and Hampshire to the west. Only the current downturn in housing starts has slowed this development but look for it to continue as soon as housing rebounds.

Waukegan, Elgin, Aurora, Joliet, and Gary IN are the satellite cities of Chicago. They were once considered the borders of the Chicagoland area and are interconnected with the Elgin, Joliet, & Eastern railroad. Each one has a history as small industrial centers and declining urban areas. Suburbanization as revitilized all but Gary.

Waukegan was hard hit when heavy industry left the area. Downtown is still a ghost town. Belvidere and Lakehurst were the main retail areas. Gurnee has stolen the retail life out of Waukegan. The city has seen modest growth from suburban sprawl and an increasing Hispanic population.

Elgin sits on the Fox River 20 miles northwest of Chicago. I-90 (Northwest Tollway) runs north of the city. Elgin has a modest downtown and has a more residential feel rather than industrial. It also has a casino. The city adopted an ordinance to keep out large scale shopping centers within the city limits. Spring Hill Mall was built in nearby West Dundee and siphined away Elgin’s downtown businesses. Randall Road on the westside is becoming to new retail center of the area. Spring Hill is still going strong. Elgin has a large Hispanic population east of downtown

Aurora, also on the Fox River, is 30 miles west of Chicago. I-88
(East/West Tollway or the Reagan) runs to the north. Downtown in the 1980’s and 1990’s was vacant, except the casino. Crime was rampant. Most retail was centered by the Fox Valley located on IL 59 and New York Ave. Only businesses located west of 59 were in Aurora, everything east is in Naperville (the super sprawler of duPage Co.) This has led to some rather nasty spats, esp. over the White Eagle sudivision in the late ’80s (Aurora stopped water and garbage collection to the subdivision). Downtown is now mom and pop shops. IL 59 is a long commerical strip from I-88 to US 52 in Joilet. Aurora is divided into west (sprawl and nicely kept older neighborhoods), near east (mostly older neighborhoods of various upkeep, area in mostly black and Hispanic), and far east(newer subdivisions and Fox Valley). Aurora has a new outlet mall, Chicago Premium Outlets.

Joliet is the oldest and most interesting. It is 35 miles southwest of Chicago on the Des Plaines River. I-55 (the Stevenson) run west of town and I-80 (no nickname, just 80) runs through downtown. Joliet, Plainfield, Romeoville, Bolingbrook, Lockport, and New Lenox comprise the fastest growing area in Illinois. I-355 (North/South Tollway) was just expanded from I-55 to I-80 along the Joliet/New Lenox border. The 70’s and 80’s were very rough times with a Rust Belt economy as the area remains home to many heavy industries. Approval of IL first riverboat casino started to turnaround. Joliet built 2 malls; Jefferson Square on US 52 was built near downtown in 1975, Louis Joilet was built in 1978 at US 30 and I-55. Joliet’s east side is urban blight. Gangs and drugs rule this area. Downtown is mostly laywers and county government offices. Downtown and the near west side is in a slow decline. The area has become more Hispanic, leading to white flight. Jefferson Square empited out the late 80’s and closed for good with the death of Montgomery Wards. The Jefferson Ave corridor is filled with empty storefronts. From Larkin Ave west is new suburban srawl, accounting for all of Joliet’s growth. Louis Joilet is the main mall in the area, but IL 59 to the far west has most of the big box shopping centers. Joliet’s east and west sides are two different cities.

Gary is dead and buried. It recently has the highest murder rate in the country. Nothing but a casino remains.

“In 1985, Imperial Realty Company conducted an extensive renovation of the entire Mall, including both exterior and interior work. In 1998, Imperial Realty conducted a second, even more extensive renovation and expansion of the Belvidere Discount Mall.”

That little quote by Imperial’s page is rather strange…everything, from the 60s entranceway, to the horrible roof, to the odd tile, to the theater…it’s all original. What “extensive renovations”?

I love the old belvidere mall. I have a picture of me and my sister as kids holding a leopard cub at the mall. That wierd upside down roof arch, I love it, I remember thinking that along with the old parking lights looked wierd as a kid. I worked for builders square at its origional location up the street where HOBO is now located. When Builders Square bought the old Montgomery Wards they tore down the building and built a new one, then we moved shop up the street and I worked there for the first year they were at the new location. I would say that Builders Square was built there about 1994. That Walgreens in the picture moved out of there and built a new store about 500 yards away around 92. Back in the eighties Alladin’s Castle arcade was where to go, they moved to Lakehurst as well. I hope the old mall hangs in there for years to come.

@Shawn, we would go to Sunset Bowl or Bertrand’s for the pinball machines, and the bowling. I saw White Lighting with Burt Reynolds at the Genesse Theater back in the 70’s. Think I saw Saturday Night Fever at the Academy. All the James Bond movies we saw at the Belvidere Mall. Used to go to Wards to get our 45’s

that walgreens is still there. 92? its on the corner of lewis and belvidere, just like in the first photo, top of page. where is a 92 in waukegan? and after aladdins castle there was fun harbor, but that got overrun by gangs.

The Belvidere Mall story is close to the truth. I had spent a lot of time there.
The Anchor store, located on the East side of the mall was Montgomery Wards. Wards was struggling to survive and had announced closing most of their stores. Moving from Belvidere Mall to the upper level of the old Weibolts Store at Lakehurst was done to cut cost and try to improve a dying image with a campaign called “ELECTRIC AVENUE”.. I believe Wards was gone in a couple of years after that move.

With Builders Square coming to the Belvedere Mall, The old Montgomery Ward building was torn down. Replacing it was a Box type store. It was so large, it was built to an angle from the original mall to fit the property for the size of the building and the fenced in areas. The side entrance to the mall was removed, no entrance to the mall. The new store was branded Builders Square but when this franchise left the state a few years later, Home Depot moved in and are still there.

The West end of Belvidere Mall had another store that may or may not be considered an anchor. It was a grocery store and had a private entrance from the Mall hallway as well as their own outside doors. This Grocery store was there for many years before closing.

Calling Waukegans leaders “CORRUPT” is such a mean word, why don’t we call them “politicians”. The two terms are synonomous, aren’t they? Besides, they were all voted back in so people must like spending all their tax money with no referendums.

Spending millions to rebuild downtown Waukegan, the Genesee Theater and the various out buidlings and garages with unmagineable amounts of money for inlaid brick sidewalks, as well as the cities plans to build very expensive condos in place of businesses. All this under the guise of restoring the retail base of old downtown Waukegan.

Come visit Waukegan so you can see the Condos(after they are built) and don’t forget to visit some our down town bars. Don’t forget your coins for the parking meters. Hmmm, free parking at the Mall.

Current downtown plans are posted on the interent, you should look at them and see for yourself what will be replacing any (now gone) manufacturing business.

As the South side of Waukegan downtown would be considered a declining urban area, I see the downtown area as an office/school/bar/city offices area with little for the family. Malls like Belvidere Mall and Gurnee Mills, and Vernon Hills will always offer more to the customer in a safe shopping atmosphere.

I see the Belvidere Mall Movie Theater sign is now gone so the theater must be long gone as well. And the Store space where the Grocery was is now a car part store. The private entrance to the mall has been closed off permanently.

The BM seems primarily servicing Hispanic customers, makes sense since the area residents is primarily Hispanic.

And yes, the Lakehurst Mall is now long gone. Original thoughts were the mall had to go to clear land for Waukegans Casino, no referendum.
About the time I heard Waukegan had lost the bid for a casino, I saw a sign go up for Fountain Square and LakeHurst Mall came down.

Food for thought, Fountain Square is the box stores and strip malls and a few motels where LakeHurst used to stand. There is a suspicious open land space left at the South West corner of the Fountain Square Property. With a substantial bid for a casino, can this space be waiting to build a casino at the old Lakehurst site? And WHO is gonna pay for it? Bet you can guess!

Stay tuned in boys and girls and keep your ears open to learn what happens next.

I am looking for someone -if anyone wants to help me make my dream come true – he’s possibly my father and he once was a security gaurd at the Belvedere mall in IL. he lived on gideon st. in some apartments. His name is Charles Hutchison goes by Carl and i’m not too sure if it’s hutchison or hutchinson or hutchitson. can someone give me any clues or something to go on here? email me -cowhoa@yahoo.com

I used to live in Waukegan with my parents in the late 70’s and my parent’s owned Small Friends Pet store in Belvidere mall at that time. The pictures on this page truly bring back fond memories of a much simpler time. The used to have a cartoon machine at the end of the mall that looked like one of those old photo booths. It showed woody woodpecker classics that I would watch over and over. We would eat lunch at the Wags resturant inside the wallgreens and we would go to the theatre fro free movies. I saw Popeye, Flash Gordon, and the Black Hole all around that time…just great memories even for one so young….I was born in 72!

I remember that tiled floor pattern and the stores. I used to work at the Montgomery Wards store there. I got a job there soon after our Kenosha Wards was closed up and my job there became history. These old Wards stores had real ‘display dept.s’,we put a lot of work into assembling and diassembling as well as cleaning all that glasswork ( display cubes to shelving). There were many nice people that worked there also and the various Dept. managers sometimes had buying and stocking discretion (clothes, apliances etc.) It was a neat time to be in retail.But getting back yo the Mall, it was a cool mall and you could eat a Zabe’s dinner down the street!

i worked at this mall in the mid-late 80’s at montgomery ward. it was a great mall to me. i remember the times very fondly. we used to go down the mall and eat lunch at Mike’s restaurant on most days. Jeff,above,said it was a great time to work in retail. he is quite right. i wonder if we knew each other. also coral, above, if you see this, carl, i called him hutch,as did many others, was a guard at montgomery ward when i worked there. it was a long time ago so not much more i cant tell than that. great mall, thanks for the memories.

@pete, Coral again, hi! i’m just now reading this. you knew of him!! wow, i’m getting somewhere!. please, i’m desperate to find this “hutch” guy. my mother Susan passed away 3 years ago – i don’t have help in searching for him. but it’s gonna haunt me till i die -if i don’t meet my birth father – my mother susan, before she died told me hutch has 3 kids -so you know what that means then – i have half bros and sisters. i have to meet them too- oh god please if you have the time and heart can you give me any leads any pictures, anything? i can pay you. send my message out to the others who worked there and remember hutch maybe one of them can help me out. I’m 33 i have 2 kids of my own -please the only thing i know that my mother could tell me was that we lived in some apts. on gideon st. and hutch was the super,he also lived next door with his WIFE (i think gloria maybe i don’t know her name for certain) and 3 kids.my mother kept this a secret from me but finally told me before she passed. my mother was married at the time too but was split up from doug at the time so she reached out to hutch and HE is my father. doug hilliard and i had paternity tests done already.my number is 6182145722. i just gotta see what he looks like. am i italian or jewish what am i? it’s killing me!! please please consider helping me. i sound crazy but pleeeaaase!! thank you pete!

Coral, I grew up in Wkn, don’t know of him but have suggestions. If he grew up in Wkn or nearby call local highs schools and see if a librarian other other employee is willing to search annuals based on his age. Then get a contact for that class’s reunions. Maybe they have is contact info. If hutch is part of his surname it sounds more like UK origins. Try having Wkn senior center (55+) putting a posting up, some boomers how grew up there/worked or went to mall may remember of know him. Hope this helps.

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